


Allay Pain

by Milieva



Series: World of Denial [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-03
Updated: 2008-06-03
Packaged: 2019-09-28 13:28:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17183882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milieva/pseuds/Milieva
Summary: After the discovery of an alien device, Rose, tired of waiting for the impossible, decides to take her destiny into her own hands.





	1. Chapter 1

Rose glared at the raindrop as it made its lazy way down the windscreen of James’s car. Of course, it had to rain tonight. That was just the perfect end to everything today. Her clothes reeked of blood and ooze of some sort. Her shirt and jeans stuck to her skin and the fluids themselves made her itch. 

With a muttered word of thanks, she clamored out of the car as soon as it was stopped in front of her house. There was nothing she wanted to see more than her bathroom and her pillow. Both were calling to her from where she stood on the front step.

The click of the lock echoed through the dark expanse of the empty front hall. There had been no one to greet her for years. It was funny how she missed coming home to her mother’s grumpy face after she’d been out a bit too late with her mates. She, Shareen, and Keisha were always up to no good when they were out past midnight.

Oh, they really were trouble. Even after she started traveling with the Doctor, they’d still find time to go out together. The time lord wasn’t always so pleased with the idea of extended visits. The main problem with going out was she would have to put up with her mother nagging her the next day from wasting their ‘precious time together’ by being hungover. But all that nagging had been worth it for the nights she had convinced her designated driver into going out with them. He really was a lot of fun to show off.

She smiled in remembering how much he had seemed to like being shown off to her mates, even though he pretended to loathe every minute of it. It was his idea to go out the next time they had gone round the estates for a visit. Really the only time they’d had any sort of a real falling out over her social drinking habit and late nights out was when they were playing surrogate parents to their little foundling, Colin. That was all due to the fact she was still fighting off the Cardolian Flu, which thrives on alcohol in the bloodstream.

Peeling her sticky ruined clothing from her body, Rose deposited the offending articles into a bin bag and tied them off before dropping the bag in the corner. Her skin itched where the fluids had seeped through. She grumbled to herself about Torchwood in general as she climbed into the steaming shower.

*.*.*.*

The warm, summer air shimmered in the sunlight as a deep grinding groan echoed through the block of houses. The wind rushed and eddied as a battered old Police Box slowly materialized into being on the residential street corner. 

Inside the console room, the beat of the Fratellis faded into the hyper rhythm of an all too familiar guitar. Donna rolled her eyes as the Doctor shook a scolding finger at her and chanted “Girl you better get your redhead back in be before the mornin’” along with the singer before bounding around the console and flicking a few switches and grabbing hold of a spanner before disappearing into the newly opened grate.

“You sure you got the date right this time?” she called over the din of the music.

The dark tousled head popped back into view. Pulling the view screen around, the time lord double checked the date. A particular incident involving one Rose Tyler had made him pay close attention to the detail of a date when he was returning a companion back to her own time. This time he was quite sure he had managed to get it right. There’d been a little trouble with the TARDIS. She’d protested a bit, not quite wanting to land where Donna had asked, but this was definitely close enough. A few days wasn’t so bad, but he didn’t fancy another slap from a mother for keeping her daughter away for a year that was little more than a few short days for them.

The trick was getting the TARDIS to register the right calendar. Seriously, humans needed to chose one method of keeping track of time and just stick with it. In a few centuries time, they would rearrange the entire calendar again so that leap year was counted every twelve years rather than every four, so a great big festival could be held in the three new days in the calendar.

Not a bad idea really. He did always enjoy a good party.

“Of course I got the date right. Well... actually we’re a few days early, but that’s better than being late, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, course it is,” Donna groused. Much as she enjoyed spending time with her granddad, she really didn’t feel like being nagged by her mother for the next few days. “You sure we can’t just go back in and jump forward a few days?”

“You know me. Timestream and the sort, might miss it altogether if we did that. Off you go then.” With a theatrical wave of his hand, he shooed her out the door.

“Wait,” she paused at the door, picking up her jacket, and looked back at him, “Aren’t you coming?”

The Doctor shook his head with a mutter of “I don’t do that sort of thing” before disappearing beneath the console again.

Dropping her jacket back on the rather dejected and unused coat rack, Donna stomped up the ramp and rounded the console. “Oh no, you don’t.” Reaching into the opening she grabbed the Doctor’s ankle and yanked none too gently.

“Oi! Ow! Off!” He pushed himself out the rest of the way, swatting her hand away. “What was that for? I did what you wanted. I brought you back.”

“Yeah, but I’m not leaving you in here to mope.”

“I do not mope,” the time lord declared indignantly, as he climbed to his feet. Crossing his arms he leaned against the console and looked down at her, not trusting her not to drag him out kicking and screaming. “I have a thermo buffer and a helmic regulator to tend to.” 

“Last time you said it was a vector whose'n'whatsit then I find you crying over old photos and videos.”

“I was not crying. I was remembering. You-” he pointed at her to illustrate the final word “-were supposed to be asleep.”

“How’m I supposed to sleep with all the sobbing?”

Dropping the spanner into the sea of improvised controls, the time lord rolled his eyes and muttered something about letting her on board being a bad idea in the first place. Donna watched him with smug look on her face as he crossed the console room and pulled his coat down.

“Well, let’s go,” he said, swinging the door open with an over exaggerated pretense of chivalry. 

Plucking up her own jacket, Donna followed him out. “Don’t go pouting now. Mum’s not that bad.”

*.*.*.*

Knotting her damp hair up and off her neck, Rose shuffled through the papers on her desk. It was all basically useless now. The history of this universe’s Torchwood made no mention of her or the Doctor. Queen Victoria had barely made it out of the werewolf attack alive. There had been no mysterious figures to help her. It was just dumb luck that let them discover the purpose of the not-a-telescope. If that was even how the wolf was defeated. The reports were very vague. 

There were no mentions of a big blue box, no strange happening with a mysterious man who disappeared before being commended; nothing that even pointed the vaguest of fingers in the time lord’s direction. He simply had never existed. His life had spanned such a large range of time; there must have been some point before the split that he had been present, even if not noted. 

The split of the realities was difficult if not impossible to find. It probably would have helped if she had paid more attention to her history lessons. What choice, what change, had caused this world to come into existence.

There were still copies of her falsified life history scattered about. It was such complete shite even she cringed at the idea of explaining it. When people asked anything about it, she just blew them off say that it was complicated. The so-called daring feats of bravery and heroism performed by her mother before their mysterious appearance three years after the Battle of Canary Warf, known as the Cyber Wars on this side of the void, when Jackie had originally been classified as lost and possibly dead.

It was hard to keep a low profile and blend in when your parents were some of the most influential people on the planet.

A tiny silver disk sat at the corner of her desk. It rested on the printouts of information regarding its parent unit, though there was no record of Rose ever having taken it out of the Torchwood facilities. Once she figured out how the thing worked and what she thought it did, her first task was disabling it so that no one else had a chance to work it out for themselves.

Really in all, there was not much of any use on her desk, just a few piles of papers that would not be of much interest to anyone but her. Pocketing the disk she swept the rest into the waste paper bin and tidied the pens and things in their holder. Crossing the room she smoothed the duvet and fluffed the pillows on her bed. Everything else seemed neat enough, so she left it to go to her wardrobe.

The bag still sat in the corner. Its familiar fabric greeted her as she grabbed the strap and threw it over her shoulder. Everything of any importance had been loaded in here long ago. The clothes had needed to be changed as her waistline decreased from the amount of activity and little rest she received, but in all most of the same belonging had remained in it for the past four years.

Flicking off her bedroom light, Rose made her way silently down the dark corridor and crept down the stairs. In a way she felt like a thief in the night, stealing away, without a word to anyone. No one would even know she had gone until morning.

*.*.*.*

He stared out at the vacant street corner. The pavement was completely clear. Nothing sat there save a few stray dried leaves. There was not one sign that a blue police box had been parked there a few hours before. Did it feel like this when you were left behind? You just stood there staring at where the TARDIS should be, hoping beyond hope that it would come back. 

Resigning himself once again to the slow path, he turned away from the window casing and strode morosely across the room.

Donna practically threw the pillow at the Doctor as she settled him with a blanket and such for a night on the sofa, as her mother had insisted. “Honestly, how can you go and lose a big blue box?”

“Well…It’s a bit simpler than you might think.” The Doctor rubbed his chin as he thought of a way to explain exactly what he had done in a way that she would understand it. “I forgot to lock the temporal regulator and it sort of… drifted off.”

“In other words, you forgot to put on the parking brake,” she translated. “Men! Why do we even put up with them?”

“Perpetuation of your species?” he suggested helpfully.

His companion groaned and walked away. Sometimes the Time Lord and his selective grasp of sarcasm really drove her over the edge. There were times she didn’t know whether to laugh at him or smother him. This was approaching one of those times. But since he looked rather sad and a bit pathetic without his beloved box, she was going to go a bit easy on him. 

“Goodnight, Doctor,” she called before switching out the light.

The Time Lord sat quietly on the sofa, watching her disappear into her bedroom before turning back. It had been some time since he had stayed on someone’s sofa. But that had been more for Rose’s benefit than the actually needing a place to stay for the night. Well…actually his staying in the flat had been for her benefit and because he wanted to watch over her while she was ill. Jackie had been the one to force him to stay on the sofa rather than his friend’s room.

Flopping back onto the borrowed pillow he stared at the shadows on the ceiling. It was hard to ignore the feeling of loss and anxiety he felt without his ship. He felt so lost and alone. It was the only thing he had. The one thing left of his homeworld. Everyone left home in the end. That was what Rose had told him when he lost the TARDIS on the sanctuary base of that planet impossibly orbiting the black hole. Krop Tor. It had utterly gutted him to think he would be stranded somewhere with no alternative. One linear path to follow for the rest of his excruciatingly long life.

Rose had been his only comfort then. She had consoled him by reassuring him that she would not leave him. No matter what happened she always knew what to say. Always the right thing. But now there wasn’t anyone here to tell him it would all be alright. 

It may only have drifted forward a few days. No more than a week. But there was the off chance that it could be years. How could he stay here for years?

The darkness had no answers for him. The house was silent, no one was around he could talk to. He really didn’t like the fact that humans needed so much sleep. It left him with too much free time on his hands. He had the next eight hours or so to kill. The problem was coming up with a way to do that that wouldn’t get him kicked out.

*.*.*.*.*

She dropped the keys unceremoniously on Pete’s desk. He’d find them when he came in. Then he could fuss about her taking the car again. Rant about how it was provided for him and how she didn’t have the right to treat it as if it belonged to her. She briefly thought about scribbling out a note to him, but didn’t think it was necessary. The envelope she had left, propped by the silly bowl of fruit her mother kept in the kitchen but never really ate from, was a card that explained what she was about to attempt.

No one would find that for a few more hours, if she was lucky.

Glancing out the windows, she watched the dark rain beat against the pane. It pawed at the glass trying its hardest to reach in for her, draw her out into the darkening abyss of rumbling storm clouds.

It really was an ugly night.

Turning away from the sudden flash of lighting, Rose made her way back into the corridors, but not the way in which she had come. She wasn’t leaving. There was something she had to do, something that had invaded not only her dreams and would no longer let her sleep at night, but it had begun to take over her every waking thought.

An idea…

A plot…a plan…

It was so well devised yet everything she had found said it most certainly would not succeed, but she no longer cared. She had been told things were impossible too many times. ‘Impossible’ was not a word she was willing to hear any longer. Just because someone told her she couldn’t do it, didn’t mean she wouldn’t try.

Three impossible things before breakfast.

With every light that automatically switched on via motion sensor, she quickened her pace, until she was practically running down the corridors, up the stairs, and around the corners of this all too familiar maze. Finally, she stopped in front of a door she’d passed through hundreds of times. Pulling her key card from her pocket, she swiped it and pressed her two fingers against the ice cold identification panel.

The light flashed yellow twice but then back to red. 

She swiped her card again but ended with the same result. She’d just been in here yesterday. Why was she locked out today? It wasn’t as if anyone in the organization knew what she had been planning. Maybe it wasn’t her in particular. Hadn’t she read something in a memorandum recently that they would be locking this storeroom after hours? Of course, that had to have slipped her mind.

Debating on whether or not to resign herself to the fact that her plan might not be able to work tonight, Rose turned and walked down the way she had come. Two doors down, one little dark room was open. She was suddenly struck by an idea that seemed quite brilliant. Glancing both ways before slipping into the room, she grabbed the first chair she found.

“Mind if I borrow this?” she asked no one. “Thought not. Thanks”

Striding casually out of the room and back to the locked door, she did a double check of the corridor before smashing the chair against the control panel of the locking mechanism. The door slid open with a hash snap, and the alarms screamed out her betrayal. It would only be a matter of moments before the guards made it up here. She only had maybe twenty seconds to find it and get out.

The device was still sitting where she had left it yesterday, conveniently closer to the door than where it was supposed to be kept. Not that anyone really cared or noticed this fact. Sweeping it off the shelf and holding it firmly in her hand, she bolted out the door. Footsteps were already echoing from the eastern side of the corridor, so she darted to the west and into the stairwell.

The metallic disk was warm against the palm of her hand. Shoving a hand into her jacket pocket, she pulled out the small similarly shaped disk and snapped it into the gap at the top of the one she had just pilfered from the storeroom. With a twist of the second disk, the entire thing began to slowly inflate, pulsating with a new buzz of energy as it began to sing. The song had barely begun when the door to the stairwell burst open and two armed guards thundered up the steps toward Rose as she continued to climb upward, never glancing back. Everything depended on her making it to the roof.

Filling out into a full smooth sphere, the device burst into a second melody that blended harmoniously with the first. It was as much a part of this world as she was, and was more than ready to go home.

For every flight Rose climbed, the guards gained just a fractional distance. They may have been well trained, but nothing gave you the sort of endurance strength as field work and a history of traveling with a man who was more than a magnet for trouble.

The wind whipped through her hair as she shifted her toes over the edge. The cars below seemed so small from up here. They were nothing more than tiny little ants scurrying about on their hunt for food and protection. She was more than ready to bid this godforsaken world goodbye for good. 

Her heart pounded in her chest, screaming at her not to do this mad thing she was about to attempt. It was dangerous. She could die. But her desire kept her right where she was, her feet firmly planted on the edge of the low wall surrounding the rooftop. She breathed in the harsh rain-filled air. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Lightning flashed through the sky with more ferocity than she had ever known it.

Her very presence crackled with a strong electric pulse. She could feel the golden aura of her soul bubbling up to meet the thing in her grasp.

It was time.

The sphere in her hand pulsed with scalding, radiant heat. Her palms burned as the song grew stronger and enveloped her, urging her forward. Reason warned her that she should never trust in anything that she couldn’t see where it kept its brain, but Torchwood had a way of destroying your belief in reason almost as entirely as it destroyed your ability to hope. And what was life without hope?

She hated not being to hope that her life would be different, that it could be better than it was. She hated Torchwood and all it stood for. In this world, she may have not been the cause of it, but that really didn’t change the way they functioned. Torchwood had a god complex. The organization felt it had the right to do whatever it wanted.

Turning around, she took one last look at the place she was leaving. With a thunderous crash, the door to the roof burst open and rattled a bit on its hinges from the force as the two armed men came storming through. 

The rain that stung her eyes washed away the tears she shed for the pain she would give her mother. There was no taking this back once it was done. She would leave her mother, Mickey, her brother, Pete, and every other friend she had managed to make in this world. But she had made her choice a long time ago. This life was most definitely not that.

Taking one last deep breath she took her final step out of this world.

*.*.*.*.*

The warm dark air filled his lungs as he took in another breath. How long had it been since he’d taken a walk for the sheer purpose of simply taking a walk? His steps were slow and deliberate as if he knew exactly where he wanted to go, but just wasn’t ready to get there, yet all the while he was trying to fight the hopeless feeling of being lost without his ship.

Staring up at the corner street lamp he tried to think of somewhere to go. This time of night he would normally be tinkering around with the TARDIS console, so it really had never been much of a problem before, finding something to do. It was too late to be trying to go down the local pub. Last call had been hours ago. He wasn’t much for clubbing. And it wasn’t all that much fun to go alone, anyway.

Taking in another breath of the night air, the Doctor was struck with the familiar metallic tang. It seeped into his nose and mouth making him grimace in harsh recognition. At the same moment, his pocket vibrated to life. Reaching into his coat, he pulled out an electronic Y-shaped device. It buzzed, bleeped and blinked at him. Something was causing quite a disturbance.

The smooth rush of pavement felt comforting under the soles of his shoes as he ran round the corner, following the fading signal of the device in his hands. The disturbance had been tiny, nothing more than a little blip in the temporal framework of this one single hour, but it was enough. Something, anything to take his mind off his own stupidity.

The adrenaline was enough to keep his thoughts on the here and now. And oh, how he loved the feeling of that coursing through his veins. His hearts pounded in the excitement of it. The fantastic unknown, that was what he lived his life for, to discover and learn anything and everything he possibly could. His life had been full of so many amazing and exciting things. The only trouble was never having someone there to share in the adventure. 

The one thing he lacked was a companion who could see the danger and excitement in the same thrilling light of adventure that he did. Someone who would not think they wanted to go home at the drop of the hat. What he wanted was the one person who had truly promised him her forever. 

And she was lost to him.

His footsteps echoed in the night, repeating like a hundred ghosts in the darkness. Stopping at a crossroads he peered at the flashing lights in his hand.

Straight?

No. Left.

Taking off like a shot, he burst around the corner, the signal pulsed once more, stronger than it had before, and then went out. He was going to have to find the cause on his own now. Without his ship, he was left to do things the old-fashioned way.

Look around.

There was a figure, bent over, palms pressed against the pavement, gasping to catch her breath. He had made it to the right place, he was sure of it. There was not a cloud in the sky, but the woman’s blonde hair was dripping with water. He rushed forward to help, calling to her to find out if she was alright.

She raised her head to look up at him, and he froze, the device tumbled out of his hand and shattered on the ground.

Bless his ship and its faulty quirks.


	2. Chapter 2

She felt a sudden wave of doubt as the ground rushed upward to meet her. Maybe it had been stupid to put her trust into such a strange and foreign thing, but her want of escape had overridden her reason. Now the pavement reached up to claim her and bring this echo of her existence to an end.

The air around her exploded into a multitude of sounds and light. Bells and ancient songs rang out in wild exuberance. Colours and shapes danced before her eyes. Her body felt as if was torn inside out and backward. Rose Tyler was dragged across the burning shards of glass as the world around her vanished from reality.

Coughing and sputtering, she gasped for breath as her lungs tried to remember their purpose. Blindly she clawed at the course concrete of the pavement trying to hold on as the world around her swam in and out of focus. Tears streamed down her face as she strained to hear the now familiar hum of zeppelins traversing in the city skies. The only constant audible sound was the thunderous pounding of her heart in her ears. Their absence only made her sob harder. 

The resounding rubber trainer clad footsteps echoed ever more quickly in the empty street. She’d heard that sound before. That long enthusiastic gait beating against the pavement… she hadn’t heard it in years.

“Hello?” an all too familiar voice called. “Are you alright?”

Breath catching in her lungs, Rose lifted her head to attempt a better look at the person rushing toward her. The tall, lean shape ran toward her at a breakneck pace from the moment he caught sight of her face. Reaching up with a damp sleeve, she tried to wipe the tears from her eyes so she could see the blue blur in sharper detail. 

There was only one person she had ever known who could pull off a suit that made him look just as skinny and lanky as he really was and still come off drop dead gorgeous.

*.*.*.*

The tiny portion of his brain devoted to rational thinking screamed every reason why that was completely and utterly impossible. But reason could be damned for all he cared at that moment. The broken shards of his device crumbled under the soles of his trainers as he ran forward with renewed vigor.

She was in his arms in seconds. Every tanned, muscled and far too skinny part of her was pulled into a crushing embrace. She clung to him, digging in as if she might be ripped from his grasp at any moment. 

He kissed her rain-soaked hair, thanking the brain it covered for being completely mad and utterly brilliant. He then told her how absolutely amazing and wonderful she really was, or at least as well as the few words he could manage to utter would allow.

Rose looked up at him and smiled. In a voice as tremulous as her body, she whispered, “I missed you.”

“Oh, I missed you too!” he enthused, beaming his brightest smile at her in the dim lamplight. Only releasing her enough to shrug off his coat and throw it over her shoulders, the Doctor pulled his far too long-lost companion to her wobbling feet and pulled her into an even tighter embrace.

“How did you get here?” the Doctor asked of his friend’s golden scalp. 

“Alien device,” Rose answered the front of his jacket, burying her nose into the fabric as she spoke. She had missed his smell, that combination of Twalikian laundry detergent and alien male. She pulled away from him a bit in order to show him her palm coated in silvery dust, all that was left of the disks she’d used to bridge the void. 

He laughed and pulled her back against him.

“How did you find me?” she asked his lapels. 

“Alien device,” he mimicked with a grin, nodding his head toward the debris scattered across the pavement in the glow of the streetlight behind him. 

The two of them burst into a chorus of exuberant laughter. It had been far too long. Far, far too long. They stood there for what could have been hours, or maybe only fifteen minutes. Neither able to quite believe he or she was in the arms of the other.

*.*.*.*

“I wouldn’t exactly say _lost_ …” the Doctor stated in mock defense. Really at that particular moment, he could have cared less that the TARDIS had drifted off who knows how many days. 

The blonde at his arm smiled brightly at him and hugged his arm more tightly as they walked. “Alright, you didn’t lose her, you’ve….misplaced her, then. How long until she shows back up?”

“Couldn’t be more than…oh… a week?” He lowered his voice as they walked through the gate and neared the front door. He loosed his hold on her momentarily as he reached into his jacket pocket for his screwdriver. Rose could practically hear the gears turning in his head as he calculated the TARDIS’s possible drift pattern. 

The screwdriver hummed momentarily before the lock clicked and the time lord swung the door open. “Definitely no more than a week.” 

“Don’t know what you would do with yourself, stuck in one place for much longer than that.” Rose stifled a laugh as she followed him in, pulling the door shut as quietly as possible. Walking on tiptoe in the hall, she giggled quietly and looked up at him, a smile beaming on her face. “God, it’s been years since I’ve snuck in after dark. I feel like I’m sixteen again and Mum’s in the next room.”

The Doctor sat back on the arm of the sofa and looked over at her with a raised eyebrow. “So you and Mister Mickey…”

Rose shook her head. “Not Mickey,” she laughed, immediately her face fell as she was suddenly wishing she hadn’t. Pausing for a short moment before she corrected him, “Jimmy.”

“Ah, yes…Mister Jimmy Stones.” He took a slow deep breath at the mention of that name. He knew that there were positive memories as well as negative, but the bad seemed to overpower the good when she reminisced to him, and thus permeated his feelings toward the name and the person it belonged to. 

Smiling reassuringly at him, Rose dropped her bag with a light thump and slowly crossed the floor. His position against the sofa put him at a perfect height for her to thread his fingers through his hair and press her lips to his.

His eyes widened in surprise. He floundered for the first moment, trying to figure out where to put his hands before settling on her waist. The Doctor was trembling when Rose pulled back from him. She opened her mouth to apologize, but he pulled her back down into another kiss, which she was more than willing to return. 

By the time they separated, both were panting for breath. 

“Since when do we do that?” the Doctor gasped.

“Since now,” Rose laughed. “Is that okay?”

He nodded. “Is this what you always do when you sneak in at night?”

“Oh, I’d do a bit more than that,” she replied in a low voice. Her small fingers entwined themselves around the fabric of his tie, loosening it ever so slowly, never taking her eyes off his. 

Dark brown eyes twinkling in delight, he laughed and pulled her back into his arms for another kiss. His hands eased under her wet jacket and eased it off her shoulders into a heap on the floor. 

Cool fingers slipped beneath her t-shirt and eased the hem up as gentle fingers swept smooth appreciative strokes across her lower back. Rose hummed a soft moan against his neck. 

“I’m afraid I’ll wake up,” she whispered, her breath tickling his ear.

“I won’t if you don’t” the Doctor teased, unbuttoning his cuffs as he slipped off his jacket and shirt, letting them fall back onto his pillow on the sofa. His tie bounced merrily off his t-shirt clad chest.

Stepping back from him, Rose pulled her top over her head. 

He slipped around the arm of the sofa to find a comfortable place to sit. Settling on one of the cushions he took hold of the hem of his t-shirt but stopped halfway in the process of removing it. Pulling it back down, he turned to her, his face no longer smiling. “Maybe we should talk first.”

“Maybe,” she answered absently, sitting down beside him to undo the laces of her boots. She quickly kicked them off and wriggled out of her unbuttoned jeans, tossing them onto the growing pile.

Rose leaned toward him for another kiss, which he still received quite readily. One hand snaked round her back to pull her tighter to him while the other wove its fingers into her hair. 

“Brother or sister?” he asked, drawing back, as if only just remembering his hesitation.

“Brother. Billy.” She returned her hand to the task of loosening his tie. Pulling it up over his head, she tossed it away. Moving in to assault him with even more short feather light distracting kisses to his jaw and neck, her fingers sought the hem of his t-shirt.

The Doctor caught her wrists and set her hands aside. “William what?”

“William Alexander Tyler. I’ve spent the past five years working for Torchwood, saving the universe and all that. Are we caught up yet?” Her voice was sharp with frustration. She slapped his hands away as she ripped open the button of his trousers and torn down the zip, yanking the material from his waist.

“You haven’t asked about me,” he stated in mock disappointment.

“You told me already. New companion, Donna. You think I’ll like her. Same old life. TARDIS, last of the Time Lords.” She climbed her way onto him with each word, making a point to touch his more sensitive than human flesh with every chance she had. He was already panting for breath beneath her when she reached between his legs. “Can we discuss the little details later?”

“Yeah, we can do that,” he squeaked between gasps.

His body was trembling when he shook her off. It took him a few moments and a number of long breaths before he was able to coherently think about anything at all. Grabbing at his laces and willing them to unknot, he managed to pull off his shoes. Standing to step out of his trousers, he very nearly lost his balance and fell on his face when he caught sight of Rose undoing her bra. It was then that the full force of reality hit him.

Blinking in a mild state of surprise he stared at her for what seemed like an eternity. His Rose was actually here. She as actually here and she wanted to…oh right, that’s what he was doing. 

Kicking off the bit of pinstriped material around his ankles and yanking off his t-shirt, the Doctor climbed back onto the sofa and kissed Rose in earnest, a move she ardently returned with the utmost affection. The one last barrier was very nearly torn from her body before it was cast aside with all the other useless bits of fabric that lay scattered around the room.

His seemingly straightforward amorous pursuit faltered within the first few seconds as he fumbled for an adequate position. 

The first attempt was to try straddling her hips, which was hampered by the smothering proximity of the back of the sofa. First his foot slipped uncomfortably between the cushions and was shortly following by his knee. Things wouldn’t go so well if the sofa merely decided to swallow him whole. In an attempt to compromise with the piece of furniture, the Time Lord tried a modified version of the first position, this time moving his right knee between her legs and away from the carnivorous cushions. 

A way of disguising his difficulties, he feigned distraction by the soft skin of her neck, trailing warm aggressive kisses across her chin and round to her earlobe which he nipped gently, gaining a happy moan from his lover. But Rose was not the least bit fooled by his misdirection and when he moved his legs again she couldn’t help but laugh. It must have been a very long time since he’d done this. 

Raking her fingers through his hair, she pulled his face back to hers and pressed her lips firmly against his. The Doctor happily acquiesced and kissed her with more than a little enthusiastic renewal.

Breaking the kiss nearly as abruptly as it had been begun, he sat up. “I can’t do this.”

His quick movement coincided with a sharp shot of pain through Rose’s right leg. “Ow! Knee!” she squeaked, kicking him off.

“Oh, sorry,” he murmured as he readjusted his sitting position. 

Breathing heavily and feeling more than just a little annoyed with him for simply stopping, Rose forced herself up as well, narrowing her eyes she practically growled at him, “What do you mean you can’t do this?”

The Doctor shoved his hands through his hair and tugged at his locks in frustration. “I can’t do this on the sofa.”

“Your friend’s mother’s sofa?” She sighed in frustration. Of course, it would be her luck he would instigate this encounter than then be unable to follow through because of the location.

“Yeah,” he agreed, but reading the thought from her expression, he added, “Well, not because it is my friend’s mother’s sofa. I just need more space.”

“It’s just a matter of fitting Tab A into Slot B. How much space do you need?” 

“More than this.” He waved a hand to take in the width of the sofa before clambering off, with the blanket in hand. A quick shove to the coffee table left a largish patch of the floor, in front of the sofa, open and unrestricted. The blanket was shaken out and fluttered to the floor with a grand sweep of his arms. 

Rose didn’t move. She looked at him as if he was a complete idiot. Her sore backside and tired legs would much rather stay on the comfort of the sofa. “No.”

“Please,” he begged, climbing back onto the cushions. 

She shook her head and drew up her knees as he crawled toward her. He practically whimpered her name as he reached for her, trying to draw her back to him, but she held firm. 

There was no way. He’d either hit his head at some point during their separation, or he’d always been this mad. And he had been pretty strange since she’d met him, but that didn’t mean she was going to shag him on the floor, not tonight anyway.

He’d said he needed more space. Why? He looked human enough. A bit smallish, maybe, really small actually. She looked at him again. It was tiny really but still sort of human…ish. Did he sprout wings or something during sex? Talk about alien. That would be interesting.

What if he changed colours, or passed out, or… maybe they should have talked a bit more first. 

“Why the hell do you need more space?” she hissed in a voice barely above a whisper. 

“Because this sofa is trying to eat me,” he replied in complete seriousness.

Rose rolled her eyes. “Maybe if you did it kneeling _between_ my legs like a normal person, then you wouldn’t have that problem.

“In case you have forgotten, I am not human and therefore do not fit your definition of _normal_. I can’t perform in that position. It’s complicated to explain why, but put simply, my thighs can’t touch each other during sexual intercourse, or I cannot complete the union.”

Snorting slightly as she tried to fight back a laugh, Rose told him in few words to get back on the sofa, they figure something out.

*.*.*.*

Rose sighed in drowsy contentment as she snuggled closer against the cool bare chest beneath her cheek. The comforting rhythm of her lover’s double heartbeat coaxed her into sleep. She was no longer afraid this was just another dream she would wake from, alone in her borrowed bed in a universe that was not her own.

She was just passing the edge of sleep when his voice brought her back to conscious thought.

“Did you like having a baby brother?”

“Hm?” she thought about trying to sit up to look at him but settle for just making the sound to acknowledge his question. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I?”

“Some people don’t like no longer being only children.” He stroked her back gently as he spoke. His thoughts not exactly on his actions, but she wasn’t complaining.

“I’m twenty-five years old, Doctor. It’s not the same as it would have been if I’d been five, or even fifteen. Actually, I’m glad I wasn’t fifteen.”

“Why?”

She pushed herself up to look him the eye. “Most people just assumed he was mine. I’d take him to the park, and I’d have at least one grandmother tell me ‘Oh, your little boy is so cute. He must look just like his daddy. Look at that ginger hair.’ I gave up trying to explain that he’s my brother, not my son.”

He reached up to tuck a bit of her hair behind her ear, so he could see her face better. She looked like she was on the edge of tears. “Was it really that bad? I mean if I didn’t know you, I might have assumed at first. Given your age, and your mother’s, you are the more logical choice.”

Rose nodded in agreement before laying her head back against his chest. “It could have been worse I suppose.”

“How?”

“No, it was foolish.”

“I said ’impossible’, remember? Can’t be any more foolish than that.

“I _did_ want a baby.”

Unwrapping her face from the woolen fabric of the blanket, the Doctor looked at her in complete understanding. “That’s a perfectly natural want, but I don’t understand. Why is it foolish?” 

“ _Your_ baby.”

“Oh.”

“I kept thinking about Barcelona and how ill I was after, yeah? Found myself thinking that maybe you were an idiot. Maybe I _had_ fallen pregnant and you just thought it was the flu. Those first weeks I hoped, even prayed that we’d both been that stupid. I can’t even count how many pregnancy tests I took on the off chance one might say something different.”

Come to think of it, there had been the tiniest chance of that having happened. A few cycle days earlier and Rose might have born his child in an alternate world. Who knew if she would have attempted so dangerous a leap as she did tonight had she become a mother. He wanted to reassure her that it wasn’t the most ridiculous thing, but she continued with her explanation.

“It wasn’t until later that I realized how horrible that would have been. I cannot even imagine bringing your child into that world. It would have been awful.”

“Why would it have been so terrible?” Having a baby was life changing and scary, but it wasn’t the end of the world.

The dark cloud that passed over Rose’s face was enough to silence any comment he might have made about parenthood not being all that dreadful. Perhaps it really was a good thing that it hadn’t happened. 

“You think this world’s Torchwood is harsh, and inhumane. It has nothing on the organization in that world. Anything alien, even a tiny baby with a single drop of alien blood, was tagged and treated as less than human. Yet…” She wiped at her eyes, shaking her head. 

“You still wanted to have my baby,” he finished, more for his own comprehension than anything else.

“Foolish, yeah?” she said, laughing at herself. “I mean, we’re probably not even compatible like that. And you said yourself that you were sterile, anyway.”

“Oh! That. Not exactly. Right now, yes. In a few months, no. It’s sort of… well… different than you are used to. We can have a baby. If you still want to,” his voice was full of hopeful enthusiasm.

“Do you want to?”

“I’d love to.” 

Rose smiled shyly at him. “Okay.”

A huge grin spread across his face as he pulled her against him. “We’re going to have a baby.”

Rose laughed at his excitement. She hadn’t expected to ever have the ‘let’s have babies together’ conversation with him, much less that he would be more enthusiastic than she. In fact, her surprise at his reaction made her brain pause in the full comprehension of his words. 

Once she registered what he said, she pulled away from him as if she’d been burnt. “Wait. What do you mean you’re sterile now, but not later?”

“I have a bit of a cycle. Roughly fifteen earth months give or take a week. Four of those months I am perfectly capable. The rest of the time…”

“You’re shooting blanks?”

“I don’t know if that is the term I would use, but yes. Given you are on a twenty-nine and a half day cycle, and you have two fertile days out of that. That would give us roughly eight days of possible conception, maybe nine if you do ovulate once more before I am out of my cycle.”

“So how much longer do we have until day one?” She settled back into her comfortable position on his chest, ready to try sleeping again. So they’d decided to have a baby, she didn’t need the full plan tonight. 

“Two months.”

“So we have time to talk about this later.”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’m going to sleep now, if that is alright with you?” She waited for the annoying comment about the amount of time humans waste on sleep, but it never came. Gentle hands tucked the blanket back round her and held her as she drifted off.


	3. Chapter 3

It was still pretty early in the morning when Donna woke up. She wandered downstairs to find something with caffeine in it to wake herself up the rest of the way. On her way into the kitchen, she decided to stop in on her friend in the sitting room. Knowing him, he was probably pacing and fretting about his precious ship that had apparently gone missing.

Only he wasn’t pacing or fretting when she found him. He was sprawled across the sofa, very much asleep and very much…

“Why are you naked?” Donna shrieked.

The Doctor sat up with a start, and she got a gander at more than she wanted. Two thoughts went through her head simultaneously: He didn’t look all that human with his clothes off, and she hoped there was some machine on his ship to wipe that image from her mind forever.

“I… We…” he stammered incoherently as he glanced helplessly around the room as if he’d lost something important.

“I don’t care what you were doing,” she snapped. “Just get your clothes on.”

She was just thinking how much she wished she hadn’t even checked in on him when a woman’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

“Sorry. I think that’s my fault.”

Donna spun around to find a strange blonde standing in the doorway. She was barefoot, wearing rumpled clothing and holding two steaming mugs of coffee.

“Who the hell are you?”

“You must be Donna,” the blonde laughed, completely unfazed.

“Yeah, I know who I am. Who are you?”

There was that laugh again, right before the woman hit her with an answer that would send her reeling. 

“I’m Rose.”

Eyes wide in sudden realization, Donna stared at her in shock. A little voice in the back of her head told her that explained the Doctor’s sudden lack of clothing, but she didn’t exactly want to think of anything related to that too skinny space man having oh-my-god-it’s-you, reunion sex. Actually, the idea of the Doctor having sex with anyone was a bit too much for her, and then after she’d caught sight of that odd equipment of his… 

It was far safer to forget what she’d seen and repress it so it merely haunted her nightmares, so she could be happy for him

“Thank God!” she exclaimed. “I was afraid he was masturbating or something.”

“Oi!” the Doctor complained.

Rose laughed, “I told you that you should have gotten dressed before we fell asleep. Friend’s mother’s house and all.”

All the excitement had been a bit louder than anyone likely intended that early in the morning because it was only a few moments later that Wilf appeared in the doorway.

“What’s all the commotion about?” he asked, before his eyes traveled over to the Doctor sitting on the sofa. “And why are you naked?”

“This is Rose. Apparently, the Doctor found her last night. Long story but she’s his…” “What are you to him, anyway? He only ever called you his friend, and I know you’re more than just friends.”

“Good question. I think technically… I’m his… wife?” She glanced to him at the last word. An incandescent grin spread across the Doctor’s face when she used it. “I want to say we’ve been married three or four times if I’m remembering correctly. Or perhaps five?”

“Seven, actually, but that’s beside the point.”

He clutched a pillow over his groin and walked over to retrieve one of the mugs from Rose’s hand.

“Seven?” Rose asked, surprised. “I didn’t think it had been that many.” 

She followed him back to the sofa and sat down as she listed off locations, and the Doctor added to it, neither one really caring that anyone else was in the room. Suddenly it felt as if Donna were invading some very private conversation and she excused herself, taking her grandfather with her.

“I didn’t know he was married,” Wilf commented, as Donna led him out. “Keeps things closer to the vest than I thought.”

*.*.*.*

It was two more days until they found the TARDIS again, though the Doctor hadn’t really searched that hard. He was a bit distracted by the return of his companion. 

They’d been out for a walk, while the Doctor again explained how he and Donna had walked back to the TARDIS only to find empty pavement. He was going to wave to the exact spot for emphasis, but there she was sitting right on the street corner the Doctor had found empty days before. When he stepped inside, he found that the brake and every parking setting were exactly as they should have been, so there had been absolutely no reason why she hadn’t been where he’d left her.

The Doctor vaguely wondered at this, but decided it wasn’t worth explaining because the result of the extended stay was well worth any inconvenience.

“You sure you weren’t just looking in the wrong place,” Donna quipped when he mentioned the parking brake set just as it should be.

“I always know perfectly well where I leave my ship.”

Rose and Donna both exchanged a knowing look and stifled a giggle. Between the two of them, they had a good dozen stories that proved that was not the case, a fact Donna was more than willing to point out.

The two of them together was definitely going to make his life a bit more interesting.


End file.
